Review: The Art of Steal

If you ever imagined how Ocean’s 11 would have gone if it had ‘Universal Colonel Snake-Eyes O’Neill’ as the lead character instead of Daniel Ocean (who hasn’t asked themselves this question) you will be swiftly and unapologetically presented with The Art of the Steal. Kurt Russell plays protagonist Crunch Calhoun, an ex-thief turned motorcycle daredevil doing anything and everything he can to pay the bills. Crunch’s sneaky jerk of a brother, played by Matt Dillon, brings him a lucrative job to steal a near priceless painting, sell it to a rich priest with the aim of re-establishing the bond of brotherhood and making a cosy wealth.

Kurt Russell is a joy to watch, as per usual. His character comes across as a guy just looking to get by and do his own thing with an “I’m too old for this s**t” attitude in a way that balances out his brother’s exuberant ambitions. The scenes between Dillon and Russell are bland and unimaginative, built upon some cringey acting. Don’t get me wrong, Dillon was absolutely brilliant in Crash and Russell could make an advertisement on vegan spam seem fun and interesting. Kenneth Welsh as Uncle Paddy uses by far the most deplorable Irish accent since Julia Roberts in Michael Collins. Yet through the course of the movie there is no sense of commitment to the story from the actors.

Don’t worry he head’s back to Berk to train his dragon shortly after this.

The flow of the movie is disjointed and erratic, involving conversations and events that never did take place and an unnecessary amount of plot shifting. Scenes that show the boom from a sound operator seen in the reflection of a window and sketchy editing commit the woeful taboo of reminding a viewer that they’re watching a production and not a story. There are a handful of good jokes and there is a sense of mystery in never really knowing what’s going on.

The Art of the Steal is worth watching if taken with a pinch of salt on a casual night in. It’s not great but in all honesty it’s still a long shot from being bad to the point of avoidable. Jay Baruchel carries the comic relief well and Vikings star Katheryn Winnick is surprisingly unrecognisable as Russell’s dark haired love interest. With a light spirit and good company an argument can be made for seeing the film for casual fun, however you’ll just likely watch the original Italian Job for the 100th time instead.

Superman enthusiast, pop culture fan and film journalist. Creator of podcast Speakin' Geek and contributor to Scannain.com, iRadio and Spin 103.8. I love talking about anything and everything(except country music, I hate country music). My views are my own and I would love to discuss them with you.